Cycling Girl Silhouette

I have been completely enamored of glitter!

Combine an intricately cut silhouette (cut using the Craft Robo/Silhouette) with spray adhesive and a little bling from glitter and I'm transported...

I love this blog: http://papercutting.blogspot.com/  It's called Scherenschnitte ("scissor cuts" in German) and is the papercutting blog of the very talented Cindy Ferguson.

Her work is FABULOUS! And I can't believe that she cuts her work by hand... and awesome feat!

On Tuesdays, Cindy has a feature called "Template Tuesday" which I very much look forward to! She features an original work that you can download as a pdf, so that you, too, can be a papercutting genius!

I really loved this particular Template Tuesday offering, of a girl on a bike:

You can read all about it (and download your own pdf) at her blog post:

http://papercutting.blogspot.com/2009/08/template-tuesday-end-of-summer-bike.html

I cut some of these adorable girls out in black cardstock, sprayed them with spray adhesive and covered them with black Martha Stewart glitter.... the results were absolutely divine!

I happily sent my first one (adhered to a card) off to a friend to congratulate her on her recent participation in a 10k run (20th place in her age division! Go Linda!).

(It also counts as my week's participation in the 52 Weeks of Mail event... yay! This was a fun one! And it encouraged me to reach out when I wouldn't have done so otherwise!)

Martha Stewart Scoring Board: Making Boxes!

Okay, I am STILL loving my Martha Stewart Scoring Board!

This afternoon, I selected two coordinating pretty papers I had (a "Taj Mahal" inspired stack of paper from Premium Stacks) -- they're light cardstock:



I checked the handy cheat sheet of measurements on the inside of the compartment of the Scoring Board lid and decided that I wanted to make a base that was 4 x 4 x 4" and a lid that was 4 x 4 x 2":



As per the instructions, I cut my base paper to 12 x 12" and then scored it at the 2" and 6" marks:



(I'm only pretending to score here 'cause I'm right-handed and I can't score and take the photo at the same time)

Then I cut as shown:



Fold the flaps up and secure with adhesive to form the base box:



The top measures 8 x 8". When you score lids, you don't butt the paper to the left edge of the board. Instead, you line it up to the first mark, marked by a downward facing arrowhead. This way, the lid ends up being just a little bit bigger so it fits nicely over the base:



As per the easy-to-follow instructions, I score at the 2" and 6 1/8" marks:



Then cut the same slits:



Fold up flaps and adhere together. Then see how it fits together:



So cute!

The board includes measurements for a variety of different box sizes, but after doing a few, you can get the idea and map out your own sizes...

What do you think?

Scor-Pal vs. Martha Stewart Stewart Scoring Board

Back some years ago, the two scoring combatants were the Scor-Pal and Scor-It. I remember agonizing over the choice and pored through various blogs looking for guidance.

I happily settled on Diana Crick's excellent Scor-Pal and have been very happy since.

But now there's a new kid on the block. You can hardly call yourself a papercrafter and not be aware of the juggernaut that is Martha Stewart and her presence at Michael's and other crafting havens. With her cleverly designed tools, she's really created a lot of covetable items.

And now she has a product that competes directly with the Scor-Pal.

After seeing a lot of interesting videos of how to use Martha's product and with a 50% off coupon at Michael's burning a hole through my pocket, I finally sprang for the MS Scoring Board.

To help you with your own buying decision, if you are thinking of getting one tool, I thought I'd point out my own personal findings.

So here are the two competitors:



Martha's product is on the left, the clean white board. The Scor-Pal has seen a lot of years of use. You can see some ink where I've marked some measurements that I score a lot.

Here are a couple of differences. Below, the ends of the two scoring tools. Martha's tool is a lot thinner and held below:



The first time I tried out Martha's board, I cut right through the paper with the thinner tool, which was very sad. However, once I changed the way I was holding the tool (so I wasn't pressing down with the very tip) and eased up on the pressure, it worked just fine.

Martha's tool comes with measurements for common projects (cards, boxes, etc) in a compartment at the top of the board. Handy!



The Scor-Pal has its tool held near the top of the board. It is VERY easy to grab and snap back into place whenever I need it. The scoring tool in the MS board tends to rattle around in its spacious compartment and, because you have to open the space, it's not nearly as handy as the Scor-Pal's.



Another immediate difference: the MS Scoring Board has grooves every 1/8". The Scor-Pal only has grooves every 1/2" plus some additional grooves at commonly used points (like 4 1/4"). Some argue that the MS Board has too many grooves and that you can skip into a nearby groove too easily when you use it. I haven't found this to be the case. The additional grooves give you extra flexibility and allow for extra projects, like rosette-making, that would be harder to make with the Scor-Pal.

The triangle that is the extra piece that comes with the MS Board fits cleverly into a slot at the bottom of the board. This I like!



The triangle is the envelope-making part of the MS Board, which is unique to this product.

Note the handy measurements below. The video I found on YouTube describing how to make envelopes with this tool was what really sold me on trying this product and I was delighted on my first try at making an A2 envelope.



As per the instructions, I cut an 8.5" square of paper and then lined it along the edge of the triangle and scored it alternately at 3" and 3 3/4". Cut off the four small triangular pieces between the folds and voila!



A quick and special little envelope.... I can totally see designing and printing out some paper that would include a cute design on it for a really fun homemade envelope!

(in the above piece, I rounded the flap's corner for a little extra oomph.)

So, what do I think?

I have LOVED my Scor-Pal. Really, it's been a terrific part of my papercrafting arsenal! But if you don't have one already and were thinking of buying a scoring tool, I think I'd advise you to get the Martha Stewart Scoring Board. Not only is it a great deal ($20 retail, but who ever pays retail at Michael's when you can so easily get a 40 or 50% off coupon, which brings it down to the insane price of $10?), but the envelope-making tool really makes it quite a bit more versatile.

The Scor-Pal is about $30, but is only available online, so you'd have to spring for the shipping on top of it.

(Update: there is a newer version of the Scor-Pal that has grooves every 1/4" plus additional ones here and there.)



Here's how to make envelopes with the Martha Stewart Scoring Board:



The Scor-Pal's website includes a ton of intersting projects (however I find the navigation of the site a bit difficult to manage): http://www.scor-pal.com/projects.htm

I hope that this is helpful!

Presenting Dawnygirl

I found a new sweet Etsy Shop! I couldn't resist treating myself to a little giftie which came in the mail extra super fast:

I love opening packages....

Look how cute the packaging is on the inside, with the pinked edges on the bright blue tissue paper and cute lil' sticker:



The tag was a sweet touch:



It's a coin purse made by DawnyGirl! Check out the sweet lining:



Yum!

My next favorite thing is this oilcloth wallet, equally perfect for a guy or a girl:

Check out Dawnygirl's shop now!

New Wine Drinking Card!

I have a new card!

I think it's been more than a year since I've created a new one, so I'm terribly excited about this one!

The thing that broke me out of my huge rut was a challenge issued by my Etsy Greetings Team! This is a terrific, supportive group of cardmakers who sell on Etsy. I've been a part of this group for years now and find all the tips and our active discussion groups highly inspiring.

Our organizer created this terrific challenge for us to share. We all purchased the same digital paper pack (after voting for our favorite from a whole slew of would-be candidates). The paper pack is called The Lake by KatiesWish. It had just a yummy selection of digital papers from which to choose.

The pack looks like this:

I selected the wavy background but I'm also in love with the three on the right....

Anyway, right now, all the other participating team mates are busy designing their cards -- it's so fun and exciting to see what different ideas people come up with when they have the same basic materials. Later this month, we'll feature all of them on our team blog and run a special promotion... more to come!

Purchase my Drink a Toast card here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/75300665/drink-a-birthday-toast-to-a-friend

Buche de Noel!

This year I decided I wanted to do something a little different for Christmas dessert. Typically I'll do a couple of pies (pecan, pumpkin, sometimes banana meringue) but I wanted to get out of the rut.

I've been seeing a lot of lovely images of the traditional Buche de Noel, or the Yule Log, a French specialty.

I ended up using Martha Stewart's recipe: http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/buche-de-noel (but I consulted many, many links, which gave me a nice understanding of how it's constructed).

I started out making the meringue mushrooms. They took a LOT longer to bake than I'd been lead to believe (I think I had them in there an extra 40 minutes), but they finally felt dry enough to be done.

Then my boys helped me assemble them. Below, Colin is skewering a hole in a cap. Then Ethan is spreading melted chocolate on the underside and a stem is inserted into the hole.



The tiny bit of cocoa powder Martha tells us to put in made them look pretty realistic and the imperfections in my meringue piping worked to my favor.

The last image, above, is of the cake batter, all beautifully whipped up.

After baking, it's rolled up in a damp dish towel and allowed to cool (you pre-roll it so that it's less likely to crack in the final roll-up).

Chocolate mousse is spread inside the cake and the whole thing is rolled up once again.



A couple of bits are sawed off at 45 degree angles and attached to the log (one really short stump looks cute on top).

The whole thing is assembled with a chocolate ganache icing that is raked with a fork to give it a rough bark-ey texture. It can be assembled the night before, however the final touches should only be added the day of presentation. (I also added graham cracker crumbs to give it a nice "ground" to rest on and a few sprigs off the Christmas tree, which added a nice touch of color). A few shards of broken chocolate add to the rustic bark appearance and a light dusting of powdered sugar give it the feeling of snow.

It was tasty also! The mousse filling really kept it from being too rich and heavy. Serve each slice with a meringue mushroom (the recipe made enough to cover a field of buches that I just kept handy for little boys to snack on).

I'm embarrassed to admit that I took far more photos of my buche de noel than I did of my kids opening presents (well at all on Christmas) and spent a lot of time inserting as many references to my creation as possible all day ("Oh, just move the buche de noel over there... anyone up for a little slice of buche de noel? What do you think? Just a splinter? Buche, buche, buche?"), but really, I was very pleased with how it turned out!

Spicy Glazed Pecans Gift: Free Download!

I made these super yummy glazed pecans as a gift for my coworkers and neighbors. They turned out so well that I'm sharing the recipe and including the label as a free download!

First of all, make a batch of these delicious (and super easy!) pecan from Martha Stewart:

Go to Martha Stewart for the recipe.

Below is a nice big double batch (all piled together -- you'll roast them in a single layer).

I packaged my pecans in cellophane bags that were 3.5" wide. 

Download my pdf of labels:

Cut on the crop marks. Each label looks like this:

Fold in half. The back will be white, leaving a nice place for a personal message.

The cute snowman graphic is from here: http://www.vecteezy.com/Holiday-Seasonal/743-Free-Christmas-Themed-Sketchy-Vector-Graphics-Pack Free download! Love  the generous web! And it's a vector-based image, so I was able to easily lop off his arms, which didn't work with the design (sorry, snowman!).

Staple over the folded top of the filled bags (I put about a cup of nuts in each bag below).

A great little gift! Enjoy!